CKEODONTA AND MODERN MAMMALS 



primary division, proposed to be called Paratheria, is that of tlie 

 Edentates. Probaljly the group so called should really be 

 divided into the Edentata and the Effodientia, the latter con- 

 taining the Old "World forms. Whether or not it be ultimately 

 shown that the Ganodonta are ancestral Edentates (sensu strirtiori), 

 the connexion of the group with others is not at present plain. 

 The same is the case with the extensive order of Eodents. It 

 is true that the extinct order of the Tillodontia shows certain 

 liodent-like characters on the one hand, and likenesses tol^ngulates 

 on the other. Certain likenesses shown by such apparently 

 diverse animals as the Eabbit and the Elephant used to be 

 insisted upon by Professor Huxley. For the present, however, the 

 Eodents must remain as an isolated group with only very 

 dubious affinities to others. The remaining groups of existing 

 mammals are easier to connect. At first the differences between 

 a Cat and a Horse seem to be quite as wide as those which 

 separate any two of the higher Eutherian orders. But it seems 

 to become clearer and clearer, as palaeontological investigation 

 proceeds, that the bulk of the Ungulate and the Carnivorous, 

 Insectivorous, and perhaps Lemuroid stocks converge into the 

 early Eocene Creodonta. From the Lemuroid branch the higher 

 Primates can be derived. The only " Ungulates " which cannot 

 be fitted in with some reasonable probability is the group of the 

 Proboscidea. But of the early forms of this division we liave at 

 present no knowledge. 



